Building/Upgrading a PC for TS2
brat:
Please tell me what you think of this as I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to all this technical crap. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
XPS 410 Qty 1
Intel ® Core™2 Duo Processor E6700 (2.66GHz, 1066 FSB), Genuine Windows® XP Media Center 2005 Edition with re-installation CD Unit Price
XPS 410 Intel ® Core™2 Duo Processor E6700 (2.66GHz, 1066 FSB)
Operating System Genuine Windows® XP Media Center 2005 Edition with re-installation CD
Memory 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz- 2DIMMs
Monitor 19 inch E196FP Analog Flat Panel
Video Card 256MB nVidia GeForce 7900 GS
Hard Drive DataSafe 250GB (Includes main hard drive plus a hidden reserve hard drive)
Floppy Drive and Media Reader 13 in 1 Media Card Reader and 3.5 in Floppy Drive
CD or DVD Drive Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/ dbl layer write capable
Sound Cards Integrated Sound Blaster®Audigy™ HD Software Edition
Future Operating Systems Windows Vista™ Capable
Physics Accelerator AGEIA® PhysX® physics accelerator
jsalemi:
Quote from: ZiggyDoodle on 2006 September 13, 18:08:17
I've been thinking of upgrading the ATI Radeon X300SE (128MB PCI Express x16) that came with my Dell 8400 (Pentium 4, 3.2GHz and 2GB SDRAM).
...
Anyone out there using and liking one of the higher end Radeon cards enough to suggest it?
I have the same system, and I replaced the X300 with a X700 Pro about 6 months ago, and it works fine -- I can play with all settings high with little or no lag on all but the biggest and/or most populated lots. The X700's are hard to find these days, but I believe the 8400 can drive a X1300 with no problem. If you can find an X800/850, that should give you a good enough boost for the game (which I see Hegelian has already told you :) ).
SpaceDoll:
Right now the game freezes for a minute or two during the change clothes spin if I have more than 2 sims on a lot; this is presumably processor slowness, right? I am getting a new video card and some RAM just to up the graphics settings from low so I can enjoy the game a little more for the next few months, until I get a new computer. After that, I'll probably give the new card to my little sister. That's why I'm looking in the $50 range; I only need it for about 4 months. Then I'm going to build my own system, or at least give it a shot! I'll definately be checking out this thread again then! So the 9600 it is! Thanks for all the help. :)
KittKitt:
Quote from: SpaceDoll on 2006 September 13, 23:43:26
Right now the game freezes for a minute or two during the change clothes spin if I have more than 2 sims on a lot; this is presumably processor slowness, right? I am getting a new video card and some RAM just to up the graphics settings from low so I can enjoy the game a little more for the next few months, until I get a new computer. After that, I'll probably give the new card to my little sister. That's why I'm looking in the $50 range; I only need it for about 4 months. Then I'm going to build my own system, or at least give it a shot! I'll definately be checking out this thread again then! So the 9600 it is! Thanks for all the help. :)
Typically, I'd say most of those little pauses would be more likely your memory (and possibly your hard drive) than anything. When you do something and the game just freezes for a moment, that usually means it's loading something. In this case, the graphics for your new outfit.
Certainly a faster processor won't hurt, but with the information I have to go on at this point, I'd tend to think that more memory would be a better way to go, and if you've got a really old and slow hard drive, that again could be a big part of it since everything you do in windows will usually make use of cache memory that it writes/reads on the drive -particularly if you've got low system RAM to begin with.
-Kitt
Hegelian:
Quote from: brat on 2006 September 13, 22:57:40
Please tell me what you think of this as I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to all this technical crap. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
XPS 410 Qty 1
Intel ® Core™2 Duo Processor E6700 (2.66GHz, 1066 FSB), Genuine Windows® XP Media Center 2005 Edition with re-installation CD
If you can afford it, it's certainly enough and more to play TS2 with all settings maxed. The AGEIA physics accelerator is a waste of money unless you plan to be buying the newest first-person shooters coming out in the next couple years (and even then it may not be worth it); it will do precisely zero for your TS2 game. Four Gigs of RAM is also pretty much a waste—2 GB is plenty. Ditch the AGEIA and the extra 2 GB of RAM and get a faster CPU instead. And get XP Pro instead of Media Center if you can. ;D
Okay, I've looked at the XPS 410 on Dell's Web site. I would spec the Productivity model rather than the media model. The E6700 is the fastest Core 2 CPU you can get with this machine, so that's settled. Get the 667 MHz RAM rather than the 533 MHz, 2 GB. No AGEIA accelerator. The hard drive is your choice, but the 500 GB SATA 3 drive is probably faster than whatever they use for the DataSafe setup. Personally, I'd skip DataSafe and just get a second hard drive from Newegg and store my data on that (plus you can put your main paging file there, improving overall Windows performance). If you want easy file backup, get one of those 120 GB external USB hard drives that comes with back-up software. And XP Pro.
Can't tell you anything about the monitor, other than to run it at its native resolution (probably 1280 x 1024) even though stuff on the screen will look too small until you get accustomed to it. If you're not willing to do that, skip the monitor and try to find a decent CRT from an online-retailer—that way you can run at any resolution you like, and games look better on CRTs anyway. Something like the NEC FE992 (19-inch) or AS120 (21-inch), ViewSonic G225fb (21-inch), or Samsung 1100MB (21-inch).
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page